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Secondary education

Which workbooks for having at home

11 replies

bookmum08 · 06/02/2020 09:15

My daughter is Year 7 at secondary and is currently struggling and refusing to go (we are having help with this). I would like to get some workbooks for her to do at home but I was wondering which ones people think are good. The main ones available seem to be CGP, Collins, AQA or Letts. Some are 'revision' books but we don't want to revise as she hasn't actually done the work yet. We just want 'workbooks' if that makes sense. Anyone have any experience as to which books are better? Thanks.

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TeenPlusTwenties · 06/02/2020 11:30

I quite rate the CGP KS3 Maths & Science guides. Certainly the KS3 Maths has 'revision and practice'. You need the revision guides as well as just a workbook as the workbooks only have questions not teaching in them.
Failing that the GCSE Foundation level maths guides and separate workbook should be quite good.

Better still however would be for school to send home relevant worksheets for maths and you use a KS3 guide to 'teach' her. Or if the school subscribes to mymaths that could help too.

I found Letts guides tend to have more explanation for Science, so that might help. For DD there was much more pure 'learning' in science than 'doing questions' so again a Science guide might be your best bet. You would need to ask school for what topics they are trying to cover.

English & MFL I'm not sure about.

Humanities, I'd ask what topics and then maybe look at BBC bitesize online (actually that's a good source for science too).

I guess it depends on how long she might be out for. You could try the Home Ed board as well perhaps?

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bookmum08 · 06/02/2020 12:05

Thanks. The school are being really good and helpful - I just want these as a sort of extra to give her something to do.

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TeenPlusTwenties · 06/02/2020 12:37

I'd be tempted to do science experiments at home.
It might not be 'curriculum' but it will all help with understanding.

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Kazzyhoward · 06/02/2020 12:45

I'd go with CGP for maths and sciences and Eng Lang if you can get them at the right level as teaching in each year is pretty standardised across most schools, so likely to be doing similar to what is being taught in class.

Geography and history and Eng Lit is difficult as schools will choose their own topics/subjects to study, so any textbook or workbook is unlikely to exactly match what they're doing (in fact none of it may match).

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EwwSprouts · 06/02/2020 12:47

Duolingo app would help her start/keep up with vocabulary for foreign language.

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bookmum08 · 06/02/2020 13:57

Teen science experiments at home may not be a good plan - she already makes 'soup' out of whatever she finds usually involving vinegar and garlic - urgh Grin.
Thanks everyone. I kind of want to just stick to the basics of English and Maths as a priority so I think those CGP ones sound best. We don't have internet at home so it does restrict things a bit but being obsessed with internet is one of our on going issues.

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TeenPlusTwenties · 06/02/2020 14:02

You could do physics - electric circuits, magnetism, floating body displaces its own weight of water, that kind of thing?

Also an interesting one, did you know 1litre of water weighs 1kg and is 1000cm^3. So you can make a net for a 10cm cube (maths) seal it up, and it should hold 1ltr of water. It tends not to look big enough.

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Gogolego · 06/02/2020 14:10

Does your school sell some sort of book I.e through the online pay system.

It's one of my responsibilities at the school I work at. And for ks3 we sell the CGP KS3 science study and practice books and the revision question cards.

All the departments at the school only sell CGP stuff

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bookmum08 · 06/02/2020 14:37

Science is totally not my thing so I would be learning too!

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bookmum08 · 06/02/2020 14:39

Buying the books it would be easier for me to just go to Waterstones to be honest!

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TheletterZ · 06/02/2020 19:46

This website homeschoolden.com/ is an American homeschooler and has some really nice resources (though as America you will need to check spelling) that you can work through. Your daughter could pick a topic that interests her, even if it isn’t something she will study at school.

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